The trio now complete, the world remakes itself around me—not as a path to follow, but as a thing to devour.
The wind no longer obeys—it becomes. My lungs inhale squalls; my pulse hammers in time with the gale's rhythm. Each stride is a collision and a collapse, footfalls not striking earth but rejecting it. The cracked ground splinters further, but I'm already gone, arcing through the air like a bullet fired into the throat of the horizon.
[ Remaining MP: 240/300 ]
Dust rises in cyclones, thick and suffocating, but the wind tears through it, carving a tunnel of clarity. I don't run—I unspool. The wasteland bends, a bow drawn taut, and I am the arrow loose from its string.
Gravel lashes my skin, but the wind intervenes, shearing the worst of the storm's fury into ribbons. My vision fractures into fragments—a flash of bleached sky, a flicker of sun-bleached stone, the darting shadow of monsters fleeing the quake of my passage. I am velocity incarnate, yet the world feels slow, syrupy, as if I'm sprinting through the heart of a fossilized hourglass.
[ Remaining MP: 180/375 ]
However, to me, it was all science, approximately 60km/h based on the warping of my perception and the amount of ground covered per step. Usain Bolt managed an impressive 44 km/h for 9 seconds. But me? Well, I'll see how long my mana lasts before exhausting.
The spell though, the spell is alive. Hungry. It gnaws at my edges, peeling away breath, moisture, thought. My veins blaze with a cold fire, muscles fraying like sun-bleached rope. The wind demands reciprocity: Give me your exhaustion, and I'll carve you into legend. I oblige. Sweat evaporates before it beads; gasps are stolen by the whirlwind. My body is both weapon and wick, burning itself to feed the frenzy.
[ Remaining MP: 120/375 ]
Yet there's euphoria here—a vicious, howling joy. The wind's laughter rattles my ribs as I vault a canyon, the fissure yawning beneath me for a breathless second before the gale surges, thrusting me upward. I pivot midair, my boots skimming the crest of a dune, and the wasteland becomes an ocean, its amber waves frozen mid-crash. For a heartbeat, I'm weightless. Then gravity remembers its grudge, and the wind hurls me earthward like a meteor.
120 MP remaining. I want to save at least 20 MP for the cast of a 2-Star spell in case of dangers that may come my way. Monsters near the area of the Stormbreak Spire usually range from the Apprentice-Class all the way to the Advance-Class. In game-terminology, they would range from 3-Star all the way to 6-Star, creatures I definitely don't want to meet.
Therefore, to save mana I'll selectively disable Veil and rely on the force of Burst alone. Of course, due to the increase in surface area and therefore drag by air resistance, my top speed will decrease. Still that's a greater distance than otherwise.
I focus back, the earth rushing up. I laugh, wild and raw, and roar the incantation once more—not to command, but to thank.
"Burst!"
The impact never comes.
Only momentum.
Only the unending road, dust-choked and defiant, stretching into the furnace of the horizon.
.
.
.
[ Remaining MP: 30/250 ]
The wind dies.
The world snaps back into focus as Wind Walker's rush fades, leaving only the scrape of my boots against dirt. I roll to a stop, breath ragged—not at the academy, of course not. That would've been too kind.
But I'd pushed farther than expected.
Mana for stamina—a reckless trade, but it worked. My veins still hum with the afterburn of spent energy, but my lungs no longer scream. Stamina trickles back, slow but steady. Enough to keep moving and enough to survive.
"Temporal Anchor, stats."
Name: [ERROR]
Class: Anomalous Entity
Title: "Adept of the Howling Void"
Stats:
- Strength: 1-Star
- Vitality: 3-Star
= Agility: 3-Star
- Intellect: 5-Star
- Stamina: 46%
Attributes:
Temporal Anchor (Passive?): A reminder that you're an outsider, you have been granted the authority to 'perceive' into the inhabitants of this world — With sufficient usage, you may see more…
Hollow Frame (Curable Debuff): While the mind is expansive, the body is a hollow mimicry — merely a shell incapable of expressing full potential in the material plane.
Element Affinity:
Wind (Main Element): 2-Star
Mana Remaining: 30/300 MP
Fascinating. I had noticed my mana cap increasing throughout my sprint. The odd thing is, in EAA, Mana Capacity scales with intellect—yet my intellect stats remain completely stagnant. Logically deducing, this could suggest that even more has diverged from the main story, to the point where the fundamental magic system itself may be altered.
Still, it was a worthwhile trade-off, burning through mana allowed my stamina to recharge. Now, I can seamlessly alternate between Wind Walker and jogging, effectively letting me travel indefinitely.
I get back on my feet and begin walking again, the sounds escaping from the screams and screeches coming from the Stormbreak Spire urging all my senses to do so.
"A towering helix of blackened iron—just as the game described it—coiling into the heavens like a god's discarded spear. Sixty floors stab through the clouds, their peak lost in the storm. The land below? A wasteland of perpetual lightning, a no-man's-land where the sky never stops screaming.
And the boss waiting on the 60th floor?
Hell. No.
Not just some dungeon monster. A Mythical-Class Thunder Spirit. EAA gave it 14-Stars—the kind of thing that wipes nations off the map.
Its name?
The First Clap and Flash.
One of the many primordial spirits
Keraunos
The Lightning Roc.
A creature that doesn't just summon storms… It was born from the eye of the storm at the dawn of the world. If I do enroll into the academy, I would have to learn about the history of these Primordial Spirits all over again. But it's a story uneasy to forget…
[ Stamina: 50% ]
Yeah, I should get going now. There's not a chance in hell I'm cutting through those lightning-scarred badlands. I'll skirt the perimeter—safer, slower, infinitely less suicidal.
The sun glares over the horizon, pale and strained through lingering storm vapors. Dawn's proper now—call it 7am, assuming the physics operate the same in EAA.
Currently, I'm at the far edge of the Stormbreak Spiral. About 90 kilometers from the academy grounds. A brutal distance, but not impossible.
My travel protocol would be a hybrid walk-jog at 7 km/h for 60 minutes. 7 km secured. Alternating into Wind Walker about 60 km/h for 30 minutes flat. 30 km vaporized. I'll repeat this cycle.
My math doesn't lie. Total ETA: 5 hours 17 minutes. If my mana holds. If the terrain doesn't fight back. If the storm's hunger doesn't grow. Too many 'ifs. But standing here? That's a death warrant. Boots to dirt. Fuck. Time to burn daylight.